Market Stumbles on Fed Caution as Options Expiry Looms: Crypto Daybook Americas

By Francisco Rodrigues (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

The crypto market is struggling to find stable ground after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, speaking after the central bank cut the interest rate by 25 basis points, suggested another reduction in December isn't guaranteed.

Bitcoin BTC$88,216.17 is down 2.5% over the last 24 hours to $110,200, while the broader market as measured by the CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index lost 1.7%.

While Wednesday's reduction was expected, Powell's hesitancy about further easing sparked a pullback in risk assets. The move came even as President Donald Trump signaled trade tensions with China are easing.

The turbulence led to more than $820 million of crypto market liquidations over the last 24 hours. Equities indexes saw slight drops and gold is struggling to remain above the $4,000 mark.

Still, the central bank also announced it would end its balance sheet runoff by Dec. 1, a move that could add liquidity to financial markets. To Spanish bank Bankinter, what’s stopping traditional asset prices from rising is a case of “altitude sickness.”

“The next 48 hours should be spent digesting the immense flow of information, particularly corporate earnings and central bank news,” the bank’s analysts wrote in a note. “The underlying tendency is to react quite positively, with the only constraint being the 'altitude sickness' from new highs.”

Lofty heights are not a problem for crypto given bitcoin is trading some 13% below the all-time high it hit less than a month ago. To QCP Capital, it’s a result of muted enthusiasm.

“The 10 October flash crash left both retail and institutional players cautious, and order book liquidity has yet to recover,” the firm's analysts wrote. “Meanwhile, digital asset treasuries (DATs) are adding to sell pressure as many trade below 1 mNAV.”

These discounts could see more DATs buy back shares with funds that may come through asset sales. Ether treasury firm ETHZilla made headlines earlier this week for doing just that, selling $40 million in ETH to repurchase shares at a discount to NAV.

Meanwhile, Friday’s $13 billion options expiry is adding more pressure to crypto prices. According to Deribit data, market makers are exposed to negative gamma at strike prices between $100,000 and $111,000.

That setup means hedging activity could amplify price swings into the end of the week. Stay alert!

What to Watch

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk's "Crypto Week Ahead".

• Crypto
  • Oct. 30: Cronos (CRO) mainnet receives the “Smarturn” upgrade.
  • Oct. 30, 10 a.m.: Core Scientific (CORZ) virtual special meeting for stockholder vote on merger with CoreWeave (CRWV) and related executive compensation.
  • Oct. 30: HashKey Chain (HSK) pauses new staking orders to update the staking contract, promising improved yields and a more sustainable APY.
• Macro
  • Oct. 30, 8 a.m.: Mexico Q3 GDP Growth Rate (Preliminary). YoY Est. -0.2%, QoQ Est. -0.3%.
  • Oct. 30, 9:55 a.m.: Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle W. Bowman is speaking at the Economic Growth and Regulatory Paperwork Reduction Act Outreach Meeting. Watch live.
• Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
  • Oct. 30: Coinbase Global (COIN), post-market, $1.14.
  • Oct. 30: Reddit (RDDT), post-market, 52 cents
  • Oct. 30: Riot Platforms (RIOT), post-market, -7 cents.
  • Oct. 30: Strategy (MSTR), post-market, -10 cents.

Token Events

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk's "Crypto Week Ahead".

• Governance votes & calls
  • Arbitrum DAO is voting on a proposal to transfer 8,500 ETH from its treasury to the Arbitrum Treasury Management Council to activate idle funds and generate yield. Voting ends Oct. 30.
• Unlocks
  • Oct. 30: ZORA$0.03976 to unlock 4.55% of its circulating supply worth $15.75 million.
  • Oct. 30: KMNO$0.05345 to unlock 5.99% of its circulating supply worth $13.65 million.
• Token Launches
  • Oct. 30: Plasma XPL$0.1229 was listed on Bitstamp.

Conferences

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk's "Crypto Week Ahead".

• Day 2 of 2: Future of Money, Governance, and the Law 2025 (Washington)
• Day 1 of 3: CosmosVerse Balkans 2025 (Split, Croatia)

Token Talk

By Oliver Knight

• More than $80 billion was wiped off the total crypto market cap in the past 24 hours, as traders "sold the news" after the Fed's interest-rate cut and a trade deal between the U.S. and China.
• Bitcoin BTC$88,216.17 and ether ETH$2,982.48, the two biggest cryptocurrencies, are both down 2.5% as they grapple with levels of support. XRP and XLM were the worst performing tokens out of the 20 largest, losing 3.5% and 3.3% respectively.
• Plasma XPL$0.1229 continues to make headlines for the wrong reasons, tumbling 14% in 24 hours to compound an overall loss of 81% since Sept. 28.
• One glimmer of optimism across the altcoin market was TRUMP, the memecoin backed by the U.S. president, which rose by 6.8% after reports emerged that Fight Fight Fight, the company managing the token, is planning to acquire U.S. fundraising platform Republic.
• TRUMP has now risen by 45% this week although at $8.40 it remains well below its record high of $45.47.
• Bitcoin dominance ticked down slightly from 59.3% to 59.0%, suggesting that some altcoins are outperforming bitcoin during this latest period of sell pressure.

Derivatives Positioning

• Despite yesterday's post-Fed news price drop in bitcoin, the BTC futures market shows strength: Open interest (OI) has slightly increased to $27.2 billion, confirming minimal liquidations and quick buyer re-entry.
• Crucially, the highly polarized funding rates have normalized, now trending neutral and close-to-flat across most venues. This signals underlying market resilience and a less volatile, more measured sentiment compared with the previous uncertainty.
• The BTC options market maintains a strong bullish lean, although short-term conviction has moderated.
• The implied volatility (IV) term structure still exhibits near-term backwardation before transitioning to long-term contango. The one-week 25-delta skew has dropped to 8% from 10% yesterday, but traders are still paying a significant premium for short-term call options.
• This reduced conviction is reflected in the 24-hour put-call volume ratio, which remains bullish at 55:44 in favor of calls.
• Coinglass data shows $821 million in 24 hour liquidations, with a 79-21 split between longs and shorts.
• BTC ($368 million), ETH ($188 million) and others ($52 million) were the leaders in terms of notional liquidations. Binance liquidation heatmap indicates $109,700 as a core liquidation level to monitor, in case of a price drop.

Market Movements

• BTC is down 1.41% from 4 p.m. ET Wednesday at $109,991.72 (24hrs: -2.6%)
• ETH is down 1.3% at $3,894.22 (24hrs: -2.48%)
• CoinDesk 20 is down 1.56% at 3,670.84 (24hrs: -2.49%)
• Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 1 bps at 2.84%
• BTC funding rate is at 0.0024% (2.6488% annualized) on Binance

• DXY is unchanged at 99.18
• Gold futures are up 0.16% at $4,007.30
• Silver futures are unchanged at $47.92
• Nikkei 225 closed little changed at 51,325.61
• Hang Seng closed down 0.24% at 26,282.69
• FTSE is down 0.58% at 9,699.33
• Euro Stoxx 50 is down 0.48% at 5,678.22
• DJIA closed on Wednesday down 0.16% at 47,632.00
• S&P 500 closed unchanged at 6,890.59
• Nasdaq Composite closed up 0.55% at 23,958.47
• S&P/TSX Composite closed down 0.9% at 30,144.78
• S&P 40 Latin America closed up 1.11% at 3,012.82
• U.S. 10-Year Treasury rate is up 1 bps at 4.068%
• E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.22% at 6,907.75
• E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 0.21% at 26,207.25
• E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index are down 0.39% at 47,610.00

Bitcoin Stats

• BTC Dominance: 59.66% (+0.19%)
• Ether-bitcoin ratio: 0.03538 (-0.29%)
• Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 1,108 EH/s
• Hashprice (spot): $44.75
• Total fees: 2.61 BTC / $292,842
• CME Futures Open Interest: 138,885 BTC
• BTC priced in gold: 26.2 oz.
• BTC vs gold market cap: 7.39%

Technical Analysis

• Bitcoin BTC$88,216.17 is currently holding above its critical weekly support level at $107,000, having successfully bounced off this zone earlier on Thursday. Maintaining this support is key.
• Should this core support area break, the next significant level to watch would be a potential retest to $99,000.
• Regarding momentum, the RSI is trending lower, signaling decreasing momentum, but there are no clear bullish or bearish divergences currently present to confirm a shift in the primary trend.

Crypto Equities

• Coinbase Global (COIN): closed on Wednesday at $348.61 (-1.86%), +2.61% at $357.72 in pre-market
• Circle Internet (CRCL): closed at $131.74 (-3.21%), +3.56% at $136.43
• Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $36.43 (-2.31%), +3.21% at $37.60
• Bullish (BLSH): closed at $52.57 (-2.67%), +2.66% at $53.97
• MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $18.88 (0%), +0.85% at $19.04
• Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $22.17 (+2.85%), -0.81% at $21.99
• Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $20.77 (+3.38%), -1.25% at $20.51
• CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $18.89 (-1.36%), +8.75% at $20.54
• CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $58.65 (-1.4%), +1.93% at $59.78
• Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $24.67 (-1.36%), +2.55% at $25.30

Crypto Treasury Companies

• Strategy (MSTR): closed at $275.36 (-3.26%), +3.31% at $284.47
• Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $25.99 (-4.52%), +4.23% at $27.09
• SharpLink Gaming (SBET): closed at $13.61 (-0.95%), -1.62% at $13.39
• Upexi (UPXI): closed at $4.54 (-1.94%), +4.41% at $4.74
• Lite Strategy (LITS): closed at $2.08 (+7.77%), unchanged in pre-market

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs

• Daily net flows: -$470.7 million
• Cumulative net flows: $61.83 billion
• Total BTC holdings ~1.36 million

Spot ETH ETFs

• Daily net flows: -$81.4 million
• Cumulative net flows: $14.67 billion
• Total ETH holdings ~6.81 million

Source: Farside Investors

While You Were Sleeping

• Crypto Traders Take On $800M Liquidations as Fed’s Caution Sparks ‘Sell-the-News’ Reversal (CoinDesk): Jerome Powell’s cautious tone after a quarter-point cut triggered forced futures closures that hit long traders, knocking bitcoin toward $108,000 before a rebound near $110,000 as positions were trimmed.
• U.S. and China Agree to One-Year Trade Truce After Donald Trump-Xi Jinping Talks (Financial Times): The framework pauses tech and rare-earth curbs, cuts a fentanyl-linked tariff, and freezes shipping levies, with leader visits planned as negotiators turn it into a broader agreement.
• Binance Boosted Trump Family’s Crypto Company Ahead of Pardon for Its Billionaire Founder (The Wall Street Journal): Binance allegedly sent engineers to World Liberty Financial and pushed for a $2 billion investment to be paid in USD1, boosting the stablecoin before Zhao’s pardon — claims both sides deny.
• This Bitcoin Market Dynamic Commands Attention as Prices Surge Past $110K Ahead of $13B Options Expiry (CoinDesk): With $13 billion in options expiring Friday, dealer hedging is likely to force buying on upticks and selling on dips near key levels, creating self-reinforcing swings that may overwhelm fundamentals.
• Central Banks Step Up Gold Purchases Despite Record-High Price (Bloomberg): Purchases rose 28% to 220 tons last quarter. Demand was led by Kazakhstan, while Brazil bought for the first time in over four years, on geopolitics, inflation and dollar concerns.